The Red Shadow

This insipid mini operetta featuring a Eddy-McDonald prototype in a Valentino scenario is so bad it becomes an endurance exercise after five minutes. It's silly from the get go as this brevity opens two military men discussing the lack of manliness in the son of one of the officers. In under a minute he is packed off to Morrocco where he lives a double life as the Red Shadow; the leader of an Arab tribe that would rather sing than fight.

Alexander Gray and Bernice Clare possess fine light opera voices (with little acting ability) and there's a decent bass in there as well but the acting is so haphazard scenes so ill prepared you get the feeling they are making things up as they go along.

This two reeler was part of a larger stage production that lists six writers. With more room to spoof and warble the show may have had some entertainment values but this rushed quickie is little more than an insult to an audience waiting for the feature presentation.

The original film version of the Desert Song was actually made in 1928. It was an antique by the end of 1929, but the music was beautiful, even through the fog of the primitive Vitaphone recording. Thus, with technology greatly improved, Warner Brothers went for a remake of their dawn of sound operetta. However, musical pictures were out of fashion in 1932, so the film was made into a twenty minute short. This story of a perceived weakling who is constantly disappointing his soldier father and the weakling's alter-ego, the brave renegade known as The Red Shadow, was overly long in 1929 at 123 minutes. Likewise, 20 minutes is just not enough time in which to stuff the story, much less all of the beautiful music. This is a pretty good short for those of us who have seen any of the feature film versions. However, for those who haven't, you'll probably perceive this short as overly busy, which it really is.

Not to mention that Alexander Gray really can't hold a candle to the original Red Shadow - John Boles. I wish Warner Bros. could have had him reprise his role here, it really would have improved matters. Then there is the matter of Azuri the Arab vamp. Originally she was played by Myrna Loy, who was always getting stuck with playing the vamp over at Warner Brothers. She delivers a delicious campy performance in the original, but there is not much for the character of Azuri to do here - there simply isn't enough time.

Watch the original 1929 film first, in all of its primitive glory, then observe this short and think of what might have been if the original cast could have been reassembled four years later for a remake of reasonable length - 60 minutes should have adequately done the job.

This two reel short from Warner Brothers is a real find if you can get it. Alexander Gray and Bernice Clare did a number of early sound musical adaptations for the screen of some of the great operettas back in the day. Their brief moment of popularity was passing when this abbreviated version of The Desert Song was done. But the fact that Alexander Gray appeared in the original stage production, replacing the original Pierre/Red Shadow is a chance to see a Broadway star recreate his stage performance.

The Desert Song was topical back in the day with news of the Riff revolt in colonial French Morocco under Abdel Krim. It took the combined forces of two European governments, France and Spain, to put the Riff revolt down. American coverage had Krim as a most romantic figure and I'm sure the coverage of Krim may have also been responsible for Rudolph Valentino's emergence as a screen star in The Sheik. Krim was not a terrorist by any means, he was a real warrior in the tradition of Saladin.

The acting is stagy to say the least, but we're only in it for the songs folks.

A 19:32 minute version of their full length film adaptation (1929) of the popular Romberg/Hammerstein operetta from Warners. This features four of the songs, not the three listed here in the soundtrack section: The Desert Song; The Riff Song; One Alone; One Flower. Footage from the earlier film is used to augment the four stage settings used here.

Claire and Gray sing wonderfully. He only appeared in ten films before retiring to the concert stage and two of his films are lost (only the Vitaphone discs to the Coming Attractions of NO NO NANETTE and just over half of the discs to THE SONG OF THE FLAME have survived, but no visuals of these two). He has one song at the end of MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS and is seen only briefly introducing the finale to THE SHOW OF SHOWS.

His remaining leading roles are but three: SALLY, SPRING IS HERE and his best role, VIENNESE NIGHTS.

THE FLAME SONG, his last film is another short subject version of an operetta, this time of his very own THE SONG OF THE FLAME. I have not been able to locate this to view it. The title of his tenth film escapes me. He and Claire paired in a number of his films. He is as good as Nelson Eddy was later and even handsomer with a similar gorgeous singing voice.

Seek this oddity out for him alone.

A VITAPHONE Short Subject.

The daughter of a French general falls in love with THE RED SHADOW, the mysterious masked man who leads his Muslim tribesmen against colonial injustice in Morocco.

This two-reeler showcases the musical highlights from Hammerstein & Romberg's 1926 operetta, The Desert Song, which had already been given the full screen treatment by Warner Bros. in 1929. The plot is tremendously truncated, but the singing by Alexander Gray & Bernice Claire--especially of the famous tune, ‘One Alone'--is nicely done.

Operettas were ideal subject matter for early talky two-reelers. They were swiftly paced, colorful (even in black & white) and rather cheap to produce, utilizing as they did the sets & costumes of the feature films. Their brief length negated any need for character exposition and the stories were easy to follow, even when sung by heavily accented voices. Best of all, they were full of Sound, and that was still enough of a novelty to keep most audiences from becoming overly critical or expectant of anything smacking of real art.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.